Subcontrabass tuba

The subcontrabass tuba is a member of the brass (Hornbostel–Sachs 423.232). Learn how it makes its sound and explore related instruments.

How the subcontrabass tuba makes its sound

In the Hornbostel–Sachs system, which classifies instruments by how they produce sound, the subcontrabass tuba belongs to the brass (lip-vibrated aerophones): the player's buzzing lips set the air column vibrating – trumpets, horns, trombones, tubas and the didgeridoo.

More broadly it is one of the aerophones (wind instruments), where sound comes from vibrating air.

Press play above and watch the spectrum: the evenly spaced peaks are harmonics, and their relative strength is what gives the instrument its character.

From Wikipedia

The subcontrabass tuba is a rare instrument of the tuba family built an octave or more below the modern contrabass tuba. Only a very small number of these large novelty instruments have ever been built. Most are pitched in thirty-six-foot (36′) BBB♭ an octave lower than the BB♭ contrabass tuba, their fundamental (pedal) note B♭-1 corresponding to a frequency of 15 Hz, below the threshold of human hearing.